


The Smith and The Seer

by Austalis



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Bronze Age AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-22 00:19:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Austalis/pseuds/Austalis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short character-focussed story, exploring what Erik and Charles might have been like as people living in the Bronze Age</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Smith and The Seer

The smith is late. By almost a month now, and Charles knows what that means. The smith won’t be here this winter, and possibly not this spring. More things to add to their bad luck. 

Usually, the smith came through every second winter, and brought with him his skills. The smiths did not travel with their wares: how could one man carry all that metal? Instead, they brought their abilities, and worked their magic at the various villages they came to, provided the village had a forge and ore. For the village, it was a time of great importance and solemnity. The smith offered trinkets that protected against disease and the evil eye; he offered axes, useful on the farms, and occasionally, if you could pay enough and he were so inclined, swords. 

Their smith had been a smiling man, but there was an edge to his smile, an edge of cruelty, and an enjoyment of that cruelty. Once, when Charles was much younger, he had brought a boy with him, a little older than Charles. A small, cowed creature that never spoke, and shook when spoken to. The smith said he could become the greatest smith ever to live, if only he would realise his potential. 

Charles goes back to his hut, asks the fire in his hearth where the smith is. The signs are confused. The smith is both everywhere and nowhere. Charles sighs. The signs are often confused these days. 

The people of the village are fearful. The harvests had been bad, and everyone knows what is coming: a winter of crying parents and starving children. Charles knows it as well as they, knows they will come to him, asking for cures, as they had asked for spells to save the harvest. Charles is skilled, both in medicinal and arcane arts, but he cannot cure hunger without food. The men and women of his village will grow gaunt and haggard with grief and starvation as they watch their children die. They will despise him, for he will not be able to help in their hour of need. 

Charles already knows that they whisper about him, they say he’s a witch, that he’s a demon. He could stop them, if he wanted, with charms, and quiet threats, but he won’t. That would only make things worse in the long run. Charles can read their thoughts on their faces and their emotions in their eyes. He knows what’s coming, and is powerless to stop it. 

Late in the year, later than anyone could ever have expected, a young man arrives at the village. He is lean, but a muscled lean, as far as Charles can tell under his travelling clothes. He throws back his hood, revealing a face taut with hunger. Around his right eye he bears the unmistakable tattoo of a smith. 

Everyone congregates in the largest house, though there isn’t really room. All want to hear from this wild young man, to know who he is; what happened to the previous smith; why he is so late. 

He is nervous in front of all these people, Charles can see that, but he speaks plainly, clearly. His name is Erik, and he was- Shaw was his name, thinks Charles- Shaw’s apprentice. He doesn’t know if he was in this village, but he might have been. You were, thinks Charles, I saw you. I remember you. Erik’s voice rises as he speaks of Shaw. He describes a slow wasting illness, first robbing him of his energy, then of his strength, finally of his life. Erik speaks the words with relish, dwelling on the description. Charles suddenly sees in his mind’s eye a struggle, hears screams, watches Erik stab a bronze pin through Shaw’s forehead. He knows Erik is lying, that the apprentice killed his master, the worst of all crimes. But suspects Erik had good reason.

Everyone else is listening intently. Charles catches Raven’s eye, and she spares him a smile. She is Charles’ younger sister, now married and growing with child. He hopes it won’t be born before spring. Her husband, Hank, glares at him. Hank… he tries so hard to fit in, wants nothing more than to be normal. But he’s bright; every innovation on in the village is his work, and he’s married to the sister of the seer. Charles knows things will never be normal for him. But Charles will be there to help- with the baby, with the farm, with Raven- whatever Hank thinks. 

Erik’s arrival is all people can talk of, but they do not have time to bother him. It may be winter, but there is still work to do, tending the animals and keeping the crops. The earth never sleeps, and a farmer’s work is never done. 

Erik takes the time to prepare the forge, a task for which he will accept no help. Charles sees him, knows he finds the work comforting, and does not interfere. The community has kept the building in a state of good repair, but each smith wants things kept just so. 

Charles’s dwelling is on the edge of the village. The seer is always kept a little distant; it doesn’t do well to get too involved with the gods. With things a man cannot explain. Erik’s forge- and Charles already considers it Erik’s, rather than Shaw’s, or the village’s- is also on the edge. If there were an accident, it would be better for just one building to burn, rather than them all. And of course, for fear of the magic of the forge.

It’s a few more days before Erik lights a fire. There’s no rush. He’ll stay all winter now, and they’ll feed him as best he can for that time. If they starve, he starves with them. That is the way of things. It takes a while longer for Erik to make the moulds, first constructing a wax replica of the item he will make, then surrounding it with clay. 

Charles has two scrawny nanny goats and a small patch of medicinal herbs in his garden, but they don’t take up too much of his time. Usually he helps anyone who needs him. Now he loiters outside as much as possible, and watches Erik at work. When the moulds are done, he sets them in the fire at his door, and leaves the wax to melt away. He has a quiet care and pride in his work that Charles has seldom seen. 

The day Erik is to begin his work proper, Charles is one of the volunteers to help him build the fire. It has to be hotter than any cooking fire to melt the stone, and summon the gods who will make them sharp and solid. It is four hours, and much labour before Erik declares it is ready. The boys flee, keen to be away from the stranger. Charles looks at him, and Erik nods his agreement. He can stay, but he must not be a distraction. 

Erik places the crucible in the fire and waits, muttering a slow incantation. Slowly, a heavenly orange glow spreads across the room. Charles’s eyes are fixed on Erik’s face as he concentrates, squinting into the flames. Without warning, Erik tosses a handful of powder into the fire, making it flame blue and green, pulls rough gloves of tough hide up to his elbows, and thrusts his hands into the heart of the fire. He delicately manoeuvres the crucible with a pair of wooden rods, and pours the glowing substance into the mould. Charles stares at it, eyes wide. People call him the witch, but this is true magic. 

There is another wait now, while Erik asks for the gods’ blessings. The metal in the mould cools, and miraculously does not leak. Erik takes it outside, reverently, and Charles follows, mouth dry and eyes wide, fixed on Erik. He is so foreign, so wild at this moment. 

Erik dumps the mould into the water, and great clouds of steam rush up from its surface. The excess magic, thinks Charles. Cold and heat battle for supremacy in the trough, but cold wins. He pulls it from the water with his tongs, and shatters the clay with a few sharp blows with his hammer. A waste, thinks Charles. 

The resulting miniature knife is the most beautiful thing Charles has ever seen. Erik forges more that day, until the fire grows too cold. Each object is perfect. It is as if Erik can bend the metal to his will with his very mind.

That night he spends in Charles’ house, fucks him senseless, and sleeps with his hands tangled in Charles’ hair. Charles feels as though the knowledge of the world is there, his for the taking, if only he can stretch out his hands for it. Instead, he sleeps.

When he wakes, Erik is gone, and his bed is cold. He looks around and sees him, naked, by the freshly kindled fire. Erik is heating water for breakfast. When is he leaving? He will stay now ‘til spring. Sensible; no one travels this time of year. It is too dangerous. 

The winter passes in a whirl. Charles is kept busy trying to stave off starvation. Things are better than he expected, for which he is grateful. He thinks it is probably due to the blessings of the fire god, for his care of Erik. In the days, Erik is distant, working at the forge, or helping others with their farms. Raven grows fatter, but seems cheery and in good health when he can speak to her. In the nights, he sleeps wrapped in Erik’s arms as though it is where he belongs. 

But spring comes, as he hoped it wouldn’t and knew it must. One day Erik packs his things, barters a mule from Hank and is on his way. He doesn’t look back.  
Raven’s baby is born, and though it is messy, she and it- he- are fine. A strong healthy boy; Hank is thrilled. Spring hunting is good, and the harvests when they come are plentiful. Everyone says the new smith has brought them luck, kisses their trinket, and goes about their business with a smile. 

The following spring, there is a fever. It sweeps the village, and people are again gripped by fear. For every person who thinks they have it, there are two who are merely hysterical. Charles barely sleeps for a week, rushing from house to house trying to help. He is unable to do so. It is like nothing he has ever seen. People had stopped muttering about him, but it starts up again, as more and more people get sick, and yet he remains fine. They say he has brought the plague upon them, by consorting with the smith. They say he caused it to spite his brother-in-law, and take back his sister. 

That talk stops when Raven gets sick. Charles cannot help her either, though he tries, and in the early hours of the third day, she goes to the next world. Charles grieves for her, but must continue to work. He does not discover a cure. By the time the disease has run its course, two thirds of the village are dead, and the remainder refuse to speak to him. When they cross him in the street, they look aside and make the sign to ward of the evil eye. Hank, never seen without his son, hates him more than Charles thought anyone was capable of. 

He lives out a lonely, frugal summer, and by autumn spends much of his spare time staring at the hills. He is waiting, now, rather than living. Time passes more and more slowly as winter draws nearer. Will Erik be back, or has he found some new cause to follow? Has his connection with the fire god taken him to places Charles can never follow? 

It has not. The last of the leaves are falling when Erik appears over the hill. Charles watches him come, notes how he looks no older. Timeless, ageless. Erik looks puzzled as he is greeted at the centre of the village. Their numbers are terribly depleted. Charles can see him striking them from his circuit; they are too few, now, to warrant a smith. After the surplus of last year is used up, and it will be this winter, they will be lucky if they can feed themselves, let alone him. Charles loiters around the edge of the village, eager to see him, and be seen, but afraid of the villagers too. They know as well as he the smith will not be back, and they blame him, as they do for so many other things. 

Erik answers the usual questions about life outside their valley. They are asked, and answers attended to with much greater intensity than before. The people will move away; this time next year, all that will be left will be the outlines of roundhouses, cut out of the earth. Those will be gone soon after. 

Erik goes to the forge, sweeps it, then leaves off his work. He arrived late in the day, and now it is grown dusk. He sets down his pack, and goes to Charles’ house. It is less well kept, now, as Charles is unable to call upon the help of the villagers. Charles is waiting for him. There is a moment of eye contact, expressing thing for which there are not words, and then Erik’s arms are around him, and it is almost like old times. 

Erik is troubled by how thin Charles is grown, is more gentle than usual, despite Charles’ protestations. When they sleep, it is the most comfortable Charles can ever remember being. 

The days of winter are short, and come quickly. People are readying themselves, so there is packing instead of planting, and arguments about hunting rather than seed corn. Charles sets to work drying and smoking his various medicines, preparing all that he can for a journey. One that might have no end. 

Charles goes to Hank’s, but is barred entrance. He has seen the child, knows he will grow to be strong, and bright. He may eclipse even Hank, and Charles wants to see him before he leaves. He does not get his wish.

Finally, spring. The third year that he has known Erik. It feels like a lifetime. The morning comes, and Erik simply looks at him. Charles knows. He gathers his meagre possessions and abandons his house, his village, his old life. He does not look back.

The villagers disperse not long after, and within a few years there is nothing left to see, unless you know to look for it. Neither Charles and Erik ever return, nor do any of the villagers. 

The smith and the seer pass into legend.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even really know how this happened, but there we are. 
> 
> Historical Notes: I’ve tried to get my details as realistic as possible, but there are some anachronisms. The most major, of course, are the roles I’ve given Charles and Erik. We don’t know what religion was practiced in the Bronze Age, and the chances are its very different from what we might imagine. I have chosen to make Charles a sort of seer/healer/holy man: important to the village, but mistrusted as touched by the supernatural. He’s not dissimilar from how archaeologists think of Druids (from 100BC), but since this is set more than a thousand years before that the name would not have been the same, and the practice likely very different. I also wanted to avoid association with the modern day druids. Erik as the smith is both more and less accurate. The idea of travelling smiths is less popular in academia now than it was- it takes about three people with good expertise to cast bronze and a lot of specialist equipment- but there is still evidence for some to be travelling. I thought this really suited Erik, so I made him the lone travelling smith, though if they moved about at all it probably would have been in groups. Therefore, I invented the fact that villages had a forge for use by these smiths. That is almost certainly not the case, and as far as I’m aware there’s no evidence for it. 
> 
> The description of the metalworking is as accurate as I could make it, though I had to tweak one or two details since Erik was working alone, and I left one or two steps out because it was starting to sound like an essay.


End file.
